Baltic Journal of Economic Studies

FUTURE OF OFFLINE MARKETING AHEAD OF THE RAPID DEVELOPMENT OF ONLINE MARKETING

Olena Bobalo

Abstract

Quick internet coverage all over the world created new possibilities of its usage as a new mass media which are more flexible, dynamic and, what is more important, almost uncontrollable. And they require approaches and knowledges which differ from existing ones. So companies, which want to be active in the biggest net and want to influence on theirs target audiences, they started to develop direction of internet (on-line) marketing. New marketing activities created new professions directly connected to internet. In recent years on-line marketing became very important part of marketers’ life and very fashionable. Every company which understands the importance of new technologies actively lives in the internet. Its marketing activity is more and more concentrated on internet. So, main aim of this article is to investigate the company’s real possibilities to catch Ukrainian target audience through the internet. So, the next tasks were set to achieve purpose given above: to analyze internet penetration in Ukraine and compare it with other countries, to separate the types of target audience who uses internet on the regular base, to investigate the presence of people with high purchasing power in the internet and determine their activity in the net. The research’s methodology of this paper is based on comparative analysis – for observation of internet penetration in different countries; scientific cognition – for analysis of social groups in internet; system-activity principle as a part of system principles – when a part of internet users is separated according to their activity and income level; specific-scientific methodology – for formalization of utilization of offline marketing tools; scientific abstraction – for the conclusions. Some research results are based on demographic statistics; results of periodic investigation of internet users’ profile. Results of the research show that big amount of potential consumers with highest purchasing power aren’t regular internet users. That is why the offline marketing practices need to be observed as a substitute of online marketing. And significant part of the paper is dedicated to find out which offline marketing instruments are still useful for Ukrainian consumers. Real examples of offline marketing are giv-en, including experience of well-known Ukrainian IT-companies who are leaders of modern technologies implementations. Analysis of most common offline marketing techniques shows that even progressive companies of information and communication technology sector often use such instruments.